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Elahi approves city’s first-ever IT Park

* Coop Employees Union president says project a conspiracy to grab land worth Rs 1.5b

By Khawaja Naseer

LAHORE: Punjab Chief Minister Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi approved a plan to set up the city’s first-ever Software Information Technology Park. The chief minister gave his approval while presiding over a meeting of the Punjab Information Technology Board (PITB) at Chief Minister’s House on Monday.

PITB Chairman Rizwan Amin Sheikh briefed Elahi about the software technology park project. Elahi said the park would cover an area of 32 kanals on Ferozepur Road and its first phase would be completed within 15 months.

The chief minister said the project would generate 10,000 direct and a large number of indirect jobs, and would promote international trade. He said Punjab would figure prominently in the Information Technology sector internationally with the project’s completion. He added, “The software technology park will generate Rs 5 billion annually and accelerate the pace of local and foreign investment.”

The PITB chairman said the park would be a milestone in the IT sector. He said that call centres and outsourcing centres would also be established in the park, which would promote international contacts.

However, the Coop Employees Union has decided to resist the plan, calling it a conspiracy to grab land worth Rs 1.5 billion. The union expressed serious reservations on the provincial government’s decision to set up the park on 32 kanals land of its regional Coop Headquarters here.

Coop Employees Union President Muhammad Manzoor told Daily Times that certain government officials were trying to grab the land by giving it “at a throwaway price” to the Information Technology Department. He said that Coop Stores were working since 1969 on the Price and Supplies Board Department’s recommendations, adding, “Being a registered cooperative society under the name of Punjab Cooperative Consumer Society, we acquired the land from Model Town Cooperative Society the same year.” He said the Coop Stores project had been a joint venture by the Pakistani and Danish governments to providing necessities at subsidised prices.

Manzoor said the provincial government planed to lease 32 kanals of valuable land to PITB for 99 years, against which the union had filed a case in court. He said that 27 kanals were required to establish the park in a earlier plan, which had included comprehensively developing the Coop Stores head office. However, he said that under the new plan, around Rs 100 million would be deposited in the society’s account and Rs 1.2 million would be deposited monthly for a period of 99 years.

The union president said the society would receive only Rs 350 million in 99 years from the lease, while the current market value of the 32 kanals was around Rs 1.5 billion. He said the Punjab government had decided to transfer the land to PITB without the consent of concerned stakeholders, which would become the country’s largest financial scam.

Later, Punjab Cooperative Department Secretary Farkhanda Hasan Waseem Afzal told Daily Times that she was not aware of the chief minister’s decision.

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